


Imprisoned

by kitausuret



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Venom (Comics)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Certified Asshole™ Lee Price, Gen, Imprisonment, Missing Scene, Mostly Canon Compliant, One Shot, Psychic Violence, Psychological Torture, Venom needs a hug, lots of allusions to Flash because I can't help myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 09:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12745641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitausuret/pseuds/kitausuret
Summary: After being separated from Flash Thompson, the Venom symbiote attached to ex-Army Ranger Lee Price in order to save the man's life. Weakened and desperate, Venom spent an indeterminate amount of time stuck in his bond with Price, and for the first time, found himself with a host that could force the symbiote to take actions against his will. Additionally, Price is capable of trapping Venom in his mind, and that's not a friendly place to be...Or: The fire isn't real. The pain is.





	Imprisoned

**Author's Note:**

> Historian's note: The following takes place the night after the events in Venom (2016) #3, after Venom has saved Lee from being shot at by the FBI.
> 
> (originally created as part of Inktober for Writers, Day #27 (Cage/Climb))

_"Stay out of my memories, or I'll lock you somewhere that'll do **real** damage."  
_ _\- Lee Price, Venom #5_

 

Venom didn’t like cages.

They were right up there with sonics and fire. But cages came in all shapes and sizes. Some of them were glass cylinders, others a poor choice of host or an impossible situation. He’d thought that the worst cages had been in metal and plastic rooms with hard faces looking in at him, keeping him in solitary confinement, denying him even the simplest form of a host.

Even his last host - his partner, really - had seemed a bit like a guard at times. He’d kept Venom at bay chemically in the earliest stages of their bonding. But the truth was, Venom could have left at any point. He’d dropped a host from twenty stories up before. That wasn’t who he was anymore, no, but he _could_ have. To have that kind of power over another being was intoxicating. To be trusted not to do that, though… _That_ had been the true power of symbiosis.

His current host could hardly be called that. The man wasn’t Venom’s host; he was the symbiote’s jailer. At first, Lee Price had just drowned him out. Then, he’d locked him up. Solitary confinement, just like the Fantastic Four, and the military, and the Avengers. But he’d been consumed by rage in those days, and so they’d justified his imprisonment out of concern for innocents. Lee locked him up just because he could.

He tried to tell himself that at least he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t always much of a consolation.

 

The mental cage Lee had constructed for the symbiote in his mind was one of fire. This place in Lee’s mind sat void of the memories he didn’t like Venom poking around in. It was like being in a giant black box, the fiery cage in the center, and Venom trapped in the middle of it all. It wasn’t real - not physically. Apparently the former Ranger thought it was - how had he put it? Poetic.

Lee could communicate with the symbiote, in his own way, even. He knew how to control Venom without even having to be in sync. Venom had his own way of forcing his new host to listen, though: Manifesting himself as a kind of avatar in Lee’s world. On his shoulder, whispering in his ear. Sitting beside him. Berating him. Trying to get him to be a less terrible human being, for what it was worth.

The irony was not lost on him. A once-corrupted symbiote, trying to show a human a better way.

He couldn’t escape the cage, though.

 

This night, he huddled in the center of his infernal holding cell, as far from the fires as he could stand. They could burn him mentally if he strayed too close, and though they had dissipated when Lee was injured earlier that day, Venom had made the mistake of saving his life (again) and so the cage was back at full strength. What kind of man could keep such strong mental blocks up, even in his sleep?

In his lucid dream, Lee approached the symbiote, passing through the flames unharmed.

“You look pathetic, you know that?” He smirked in a way that made Venom’s skin crawl. “But you’ve probably always been that way, huh? Without a host. Without a master to tell you what to do.”

Venom hissed and pulled in closer to himself, baring his teeth but feeling too weak to do much else. “You are not my master, Lee. You are not my partner, or even my acquaintance. You are my captor and I’m going to escape as soon as I’m able.”

“Is that right?”

He approached faster than Venom could scramble away and clocked him in the jaw with a mean left hook. Lacking his usual bulk even in the recesses of the man’s mind, Lee was able to pin the alien down with a heavy boot. Venom’s first instinct was to try and shapeshift away, only to discover in a panic that he couldn’t.

“My mind.” He leaned down and moved so his knee was on the symbiote’s throat. “My rules.”

“I’m not going to fight you in your sleep, Lee,” Venom wheezed. It was a long shot, but maybe if he could reach what was left of his captor’s humanity… “People hurt you. I know. I don’t want to hurt you, too, but I won’t let you use me.”

“I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work.”

“I won’t be _used_ like this!”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Frustrated, Venom snapped his jaws and tried to swipe at Lee, but his host remained in total control of every variable. It was useless. He had Venom’s arms pinned to the floor above his head by the wrist. The alien hissed. He knew what Lee was doing, too. Trying to sap his willpower. Trying to make him give up and submit to this horrible… _bonding_ . The word didn’t fit. Being dragged around wasn’t being _bonded_ at all.

He huffed and leaned down, barely inches from the symbiote now. “I think you’re holding back on me. I think you’re even more powerful than you’re letting on.” Lee narrowed his dark eyes. “I got a glimpse of what you’re capable of back at my apartment.”

All at once, the walls of the cage shrank, and the fires were just inches from his head. Venom squirmed in a panic, but Lee was strong, and he didn’t know how to fight back properly yet. Lee pushed the symbiote’s head closer to the fires, and he screamed in agony as the flames licked at his flesh.

“Weak to fire; that’s what they say. But I saw what that fire did to you. It brought out your rage. Deep down, that’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

Venom roared his protest and tried to ignore the stench of his own burning flesh. It wasn’t real, _it wasn’t real!_ But it hurt; it _burned_ hotter and brighter than any fire he’d ever encountered. Eventually, his cries dissolved into a kind of strangled numbness. Deep down, though, he felt it. He felt the rage crawling up in him, strong enough to blind him to the pain, strong enough to fight-

He forced his gaze back at Lee. The man grinned wickedly. Venom fought back the roiling anger and silently prayed Lee would give up and leave him be. But that brief moment when Venom had almost given in again… Lee had felt it, too. And now he knew.

After what felt like eons, the fires flickered out and reappeared at the usual perimeter.

Satisfied, Lee finally stood, releasing his prisoner. “I can make this cage a lot smaller. Keep that in mind next time you decide to try and escape.” With that, Lee walked away, disappearing beyond the flames, leaving Venom alone with his thoughts. 

 

When he was sure his host was gone, Venom curled up into himself again.

Tomorrow would bring a new day. Another chance to escape. As long as he believed that, he knew he could get through this. One day at a time.

He focused on the mantra; on the memory. Lee could take many things away from him - his free will; his power; his discipline. But there was no such thing as _impossible odds_. There was always a way out. He just had to keep going.

One day at a time.


End file.
